


Autumn Stillness

by ShamelesslyPoetic



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Black Janus Sanders, Creativitwins angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Latino Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, M/M, Past Character Death, Roceit - Freeform, This fic deals with suicide and grieving over a loved one that is a victim of it so please be safe, like one line of intrulogical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25745713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShamelesslyPoetic/pseuds/ShamelesslyPoetic
Summary: The new season’s changing colors remind Roman of things he doesn’t want to remember. Janus helps.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	Autumn Stillness

**Author's Note:**

> Figured I’d given ya’ll enough fluff :)  
> Many many thanks to the various people who beta read this fic for me. Ya’ll are awesome. (I know you're reading Cade :P)  
> This took a while. I hope you enjoy.

A foliage of blood and gold hid Roman and Janus from the glare of the afternoon sun as shadows in the shape of leaves played across Roman’s closed eyelids. The breeze whispered around them pleasantly and Roman cracked his eyes open. He felt too comfortable to move but nonetheless still brought his gaze up to a beautiful face composed of things every human possessed. And yet none, princes with palaces though they may be, could ever replicate such beauty as Janus’. 

Looking down at Roman with a bound script, Janus, Roman’s wonderful, gorgeous -- _seriously Roman how did you get this lucky_ \-- boyfriend read aloud from a copy of Roman’s Macbeth college script. “The earth hath bubbles as the water has and these are of them. Wither are they vanished?”

Roman dropped his own script to rub his eyes, forgetting to mark it, because dog-earing is blasphemous. Grouchily, he picked it up, breaking character for a moment. “Hey babe? What was the page we’re on again?”

“23,” Janus said with an unimpressed expression. 

Roman flipped to the page Janus had directed him to but it took him to an entirely different scene, way after the three witches had departed when Lady Macbeth was reading Macbeth’s letter. 

Roman scrunched his nose and narrowed his eyes at Janus, who broke his expression and started laughing. 

“You’re impossible,” Roman groused, sleepily flipping back to their scene. 

“You love it,” said Janus. That tease. Always playing little tricks like that. 

Choosing not to answer Roman stuck his nose into the script and cleared his throat loudly, as Janus continued to chuckle. 

“Into the air,” a yawn trailed the end of his sentence but Roman persisted, trying for a high assertive delivery, “and what seemed corporal melted as breath into the wind. Would they had stayed!”

Janus smiled and though exhausted, Roman resisted the urge to preen as pride warmed his chest. Janus gently tucked a strand of hair behind Roman’s ear. Roman leaned into the touch, even as he pouted a little. Janus amended his break in character by saying the next line, “Were such things here as we do speak about or have we eaten on the insane root that takes reason prisoner?”

“Your children…” Roman curled up with another yawn as he rested his cheek on Janus’ stomach. “Shall be kings.”

Janus paused, combing a hand through the back of Roman’s head. 

“Alright, love, I think you could use a little break,” said Janus . 

“That’s not the line,” Roman protested petulantly.

“Really?” Janus drawled, nails finding the perfect spot in Roman’s scalp that made him wilt into his touch just so. “A tragedy, because I could totally see Macbeth and Banquo in a relationship.”

“One murders the other. Is that your idea of an epic love story?” Roman asked as he laid his script beside him. 

Janus mirrored his movement as he turned his attention to Roman. “There’s a morbid poeticness to it, wouldn’t you say?”

“ _I’d_ say you’ve been hanging out with Remus too much,” said Roman. “Thought _I_ was your boyfriend.”

Janus didn’t reply. Instead he leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to Roman’s forehead. 

In response, Roman took his boyfriend's hand and kissed the artful splotches of light and dark that wound from his palm to his fingers. The space between them filled with October air’s gentle lullaby, caressing their cheeks and blowing Roman’s hair as he gazed up into mismatched eyes. 

“You know, Remus actually ate a raw onion the other day,” Roman said finally, scoffing to hide the breathy tremble in his voice. “His breath stank so badly I couldn’t even sit within five feet of him. And the - the trashy bastard made it a point to get all in my face whenever he asked for something.” Roman shook his head, focusing on a point beyond the canopy of leaves arching down around them to a sliver of cloud. He kept his gaze there, saying the words in spite of his heart, “I hate him so much, I swear to Zeus.”

Janus raised his eyebrows and Roman huffed. 

“I’m serious, sometimes he drives me up the wall. Personal space isn’t even in his vocabulary.” Roman’s skin itched with the memory, and he felt all scratchy and bothered as he continued, “Remember when he broke my alarm clock and then put it all back together so I didn’t even know until it was ringing and falling apart? I still wonder if he did it on purpose.”

Janus looked at him with a perfectly blank expression but Roman could still make out the gentle concern simmering behind his eyes. “You know he didn’t.”

“He’s a _nuisance_ , Jan, he makes life a nightmare.” Roman paused as his throat closed up. Managing a rushed stream of wet words around the painful squeeze, he choked out, “And I miss him so damn much, I miss him everyday.” He turned away and his cheek dug into Janus’ knee. 

Unable to help himself as his chest constricted, Roman brought a hand to clutch at his own shirt where his heart insisted on wrapping itself with a zip-tie. “I, I’d let him break that clock a thousand times over. It hurts so badly, Janus, it hurts, how do I make it stop?” 

His voice took on a desperate, helpless quality, composure crumbling as easily as the leaves broken by the wind. 

“Why did he have to go?” Roman demanded, snapping his neck back, glowering with all the conviction of a thousand embers as if he could pry the answers out of his boyfriend, as if he’d been there when Remus made his decision. “Why did he do that? How could he! We loved him and he knew, he knew what this would do to us. Have you even _seen_ Logan since the funeral?”

And suddenly the breeze wasn’t so perfect anymore, rather a wry illusion of something that shouldn’t exist now that his brother was gone. Shapes and colors that offended him with their vividness. The birds continued singing and the leaves still dared to rustle merrily and it all made Roman’s blood boil. He had always seen the beauty in things -- the gold, the glitter, the shimmer -- even when Remus ruined things for him with his tales of gore and paintings of dead animals. But now he wasn’t fucking _there_. Remus couldn’t ruin anything anymore and yet everything was so far beyond ruined Roman didn’t believe he’d ever feel okay again. 

“Do you think…” Roman stopped, lowering his voice into a strangled whisper. He couldn’t _breathe_. “You think it was my fault?”

Janus’ gaze turned from sympathy to horror in an instant as he reached for his hand. “Roman, no.”

“But it is!” Roman sat up, pulling away entirely and sitting across from Janus. He brought the heels of his hands to his eyes as pressure built in the back of them. His voice swam in confusion and guilt and _so much_ sorrow. “I always made him feel like less didn’t I?” He chuckled bitterly. “Just always had to be the best at everything.” 

Petty sibling rivalry and a selfish need to prove himself haunted him till he wanted to do nothing more than lay down and ferment into a mattress, resigning everyone to perceive him as a failure. Because in all honesty, Roman Castillo _was_ a failure, he’d failed to save one of the people who mattered most in his life. 

He’d failed to save his _brother_. 

“Aren’t I just perfect,” Roman chuckled wetly, bitter and acidic. “Roman pretty boy fucks up big time, can you even fathom such a thing?”

“You were children, Roman,” Janus said, as if that erased the voices that went raw with screaming, the doors slammed and the tears shed when Remus thought Roman couldn’t hear and how Roman, though it killed him, hadn’t moved to comfort him in those years. Too tangled with his pride until it didn’t matter that he’d changed and wanted to do right by Remus anymore.

Memories slipped through the cracks between his fingers and his ears and eyes until he was bleeding all over. The realization he’d muffled ever since he got that fateful call now rose at full force. 

“I never apologized, I didn’t tell him enough that I loved him and that he meant something to me and that he didn’t need to be an attention-seeking overachiever to be worthy of _anything_ . I didn’t tell him these things and now I’ll never get to.” He shook his head, digging his hand into his arm. “God, what was _wrong_ with me? Why didn’t I talk to him more instead of getting wrapped up in my own life and my life alone like a selfish idiot?”

Janus sighed, brows furrowed as he surveyed Roman. Roman could only stare back, blazing with defiance and self-loathing. But he felt so fragile. Lost. Helpless. 

“Remus was never about sentiments,” Janus said after what seemed like an eternity. His lips quirked slightly, though Roman knew he must be hurting too. He noticed Janus picking at the burn scar on his left hand and still he didn’t say anything. Normally he’d chastise him softly, he’d take his hand and kiss it but all he could do was listen and fight back his tears in vain. 

“I think he flicked tuna, was it? - at you when you tried to get heartfelt one time?”

Roman let out something halfway between a sob and a laugh. “He could drown me in tuna and I’d be happy if only he…” The smile fell, Roman’s gaze lowering. “He…”

“There’s nothing you could have done, Roman. You didn’t know.”

Roman stared. How could Janus resign to the common thing people said in a situation like this? His own boyfriend for Hera’s sake! Of all people! Janus was pretending, sugarcoating the bitter, ugly truth, and Roman couldn’t stand it. 

“You know that’s not true!” Roman cried out. That Janus had even bothered with common courtesy was ridiculous and infuriating. “I’m his twin brother, I was with him before we were even born. If I didn’t see, then _who_ could have?” 

He fell quiet for a moment, shoulders shaking with his uneven breaths. 

Janus opened his mouth as if to say something but Roman, unable to hear lies and deception anymore, cut him off. “Try and convince me I didn’t just make the biggest mistake of my life if you want but you’re lying, Janus!”

He deserved to feel this, deserved what Remus had done. Janus was lying to him. That’s what he did, adorn and lie and deny. 

Roman’s chest rose and fell, his heart giving spasming jerks. Revolting against him. His whole body revolted against him. He hated this. Hated himself. Hated Remus. Hated him and missed him and loved him and god he just wanted this all to end! 

As time dragged on his composure wore down into nothing and Roman ran his hands through his own hair, pulling it out of order, nearly screaming as his voice cracked and quivered. “Please just say the truth, tell me I’m crazy. Shout, scream at me, I deserve every miserable wretched thing that could happen.” He broke off, panting, then his words grew shriller as they burst out of him in a final desperate plea. “Stop lying to me already!”

Janus’ voice slashed through the air, the loudest Roman had heard it that day. “I’m not lying to you, Roman!”

Roman stilled. Frozen completely like a rabbit locked in a snake’s eyes as his heart thudded wildly in his chest, ears ringing. He wanted to believe Janus. He desperately wanted to, but knew he couldn’t.

“I don’t _need_ to lie to you,” Janus repeated. Softer, but still firm. 

Tears welled up in Roman’s throat and he swallowed again and again. Took a deep breath. Closed his eyes and willed the world to disappear as he listened. 

“Yes you could have done more, we all could have,” Janus allowed, and Roman felt a bit of satisfaction as his heart squeezed itself into a fist. As Janus went on, however, the satisfaction disappeared. “There were signs we must have missed, words we left unsaid but in the end it was _his_ choice. Dwelling on it won’t undo what’s been done and Remus wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer like this.”

Roman furrowed his brow. Coarse grass fisted in his grip. “Why else would he leave us?”

Janus shook his head. “He was suffering, Roman,” he said. “He did it because he was in pain and wanted that pain to stop, not pass it on.” 

That...made sense and Roman hated that it made sense because if he’d just asked, Roman would have been there for him. That’s what they did. They fought like all siblings did but in the end they were there for each other and Roman had wanted to be there for Remus so what _happened_? 

His thoughts faltered as Janus continued, “But the world won’t stop, not for him, and not for you, and you’re still alive, Roman. You have to act like it.”

Janus stopped and waited for him. He reached between them, tapping Roman’s fist for permission. Roman nodded, unfurling his sore palm as Janus took his hand in his; a camradieri, a comfort, a silent acknowledgement between them. _I’m here._

“Don’t you miss him too though?” Roman asked quietly. “Like, he was your best friend and I barely hear you speak of him anymore.”

“I do, of course I do but I console myself with the knowledge I still have you,” Janus told him and Roman resisted the urge to scoff in the back of his throat. Like he was anything worthwhile. 

“Here, now, I’m with you and we’re both alive even if not entirely alright, isn’t that something?”

Roman gave a biting laugh, incredulous. “Thought you were all about the existential dread and meaningless of life.”

“That’s Virgil you’re talking about.”

Roman snorted. “Same difference.” 

Roman could almost forget the subject of their conversation amidst their light-hearted banter if not for the incessant twist in his heart but he sobered up all too soon. Back into bleak reality again, his lower lip quivered as he attempted to speak. “I envy you, you know? And every other person who has a sibling. It’s not fair, it’s not fair that you all get to have this and I don’t anymore.” 

No more bickering. No more cooking barely edible things at 2 am and convincing each other it’s ambrosia. No more pillow fights and grimaces of disgust that actually radiate affection. No more noise at night. No more noise at all. 

Too quiet. Everything was suddenly so quiet. 

“You - You better cherish Virgil,” Roman choked out. “When you get home you better tell him you love him and hug him or I’ll personally assassinate you.”

Janus took the bait, smiling. “How sexy of you, my dear. Thought you didn’t agree on the inherent romanticism of murder.” 

Roman leaned forward dramatically, head spinning with the need to be supported as he brought his forehead to Janus’ shoulder on a whine, relishing in the momentary reprieve. “You’re the worst.”

“I know,” Janus said coyly, stroking the back of Roman’s head. “But you still love me.”

“Correction, it’s _why_ I love you.”

“I love you too.” Janus paused in his grounding movement on Roman’s head and Roman bit back another, far more needy whine. He tried to follow but Janus reached out and took Roman’s face in his hands, looking him right in the eye with a burning sincerity normally so foreign to him. And it _did_ look foreign on his clever love’s face, the usual silver-toned, flattering words buried under the weight of the intensity in his gaze. “Look, Roman, I won’t tell you it gets easier because it doesn’t.” 

Roman cupped Janus’ hands on his face, desperate and helpless again, chasing after the truth in the words even as smoke clouded over his understanding. Though he tried to hold onto every word they flew away from him, like mist wisping out in morning air. Roman wanted to write them down, solidify them somewhere so he could focus. 

“Losing a loved one is always, _always_ going to be painful. I’m not here to give you an inspiring speech about life or tell you that it’ll get better but you just have to live with it, my love, and eventually learn to accept it.”

“I miss him though.” Roman said, pulling back only to take Janus’ hands in his. He needed this, needed to feel their skin pressed together and be reaffirmed. Something was still missing and Roman had a feeling it would be that way for a long time but he looked down at where they were joined and it at least gave him the strength to speak. “It really does feel like I’m acting. And sure he irritated me to no end and he made my life hell half the time but it’s not living without him. It’s not a life worth living if he’s not in it.” A shaky exhale, a squeeze of hands and the retribution in words, some comfort in their echo. “I miss him.”

“Don’t shy away from that then, let yourself remember him, and cherish the memories you have. Don’t forget him.”

Roman froze, every muscle in his body shutting down. Suddenly the other’s touch was ice that burned. He snatched his hand back and folded them on his lap as he stared at Janus, throat working and eyes watering even as he glared. How could he? How could he repeat the words on Remus’ last note to him outright like that? 

“You didn’t listen to him enough before,” Janus persisted but he didn’t try to reach out again. “You can start now, it’ll be painful but you can miss him and still live. You can remember him and still create new memories. None of that is mutually exclusive.”

Roman jerked and threw his hands up. “So I just torture myself by remembering everything we’ll never have again? Brilliant.” The urge to fight dwindled but he still bit out, “What’s the point if he’s never coming back?” 

“You say that like he ever stopped being your brother.” Janus fixed him with a gentle but firm gaze. “He didn’t. He never will.” 

Roman’s breath hitched in his throat and he fisted the hem of his shirt, staring, shoulders shaking. Janus didn’t stop. Roman wasn’t sure he wanted him to even as he tore his gaze away, fighting the urge to clamp his hands over his ears. 

“He’s still your brother and wherever Remus is, I’m sure he remembers you too.”

Roman wanted to say something more, retaliate again. He didn’t _deserve_ this comfort and understanding offered to him but he just collapsed on Janus and started crying the way he hadn’t let himself since the funeral. 

He’d laid in his bed heaving and red-eyed every night with a pounding head and heart staring at the empty bed on the other side of the room in agony. But the tears wouldn’t come, he wouldn’t allow himself that relief. Now they spilled freely, a broken dam inside him letting out all the floodwaters he’d harboured for so long. 

He didn’t know where he started and Janus ended as his love held him through it, gripping him tightly, his warmth a blessing. Grounding and perfect and just what he needed. 

Behind his eyelids Remus came and went in waves. Memories and random features alike floating around his mind. Gap-toothed smile, then with braces he constantly picked at, then gap-toothed again when he chipped his incisor during a bar fight. He was everything Roman wasn’t: pig-headed and inelegant and a bit of a dumbass. But he was brave and meant well and nothing mattered more and now he was gone but that didn’t mean he’d never been there. 

Roman could remember him. He would, every day. 

When his sobs finally subsided into soft gasps and hiccups, the sun had dipped below the horizon and lilacs and blues started hovering over them, mirroring the way Roman felt. There was still a bit of light left, the crimson of the sun breaking out in fiery streaks, insistent to its last breath. 

All the while Janus held him and when Roman pulled back, he stayed close. Roman eventually returned to their original position, laying his head down on Janus’ lap and letting him stroke his hair as a few more tears slipped out of his closed eyes into his ears. 

After a while in the silence, Janus held up the two scripts and asked, “Do you want to pick up where we left off?”

Roman didn’t quite register the question through the fuzziness in his head though he knew what Janus had said. He looked up, face tacky and stiff and wet, searching the mismatched pair above him for something. He really didn’t know what he was doing until he’d brought Janus down to him and sighed in a sort of broken relief as he pressed their lips together. The kiss shared was brief and chaste but warm and reassuring nonetheless as Janus cupped Roman’s face in answer. _I’m here. I’m not leaving any time soon._

“Thank you,” Roman whispered, eyes still closed. His heart eased its fist finally, the leftover twinge faint and bearable -- for the time being. 

“You’re welcome, love. Always.” Janus answered, jasmine breath washing over Roman’s lips. They savoured the moment together, suspended in each other’s soft gazes where the pain could only lurk at the edges of Roman’s consciousness. 

When one of them spoke again it was Roman, coarse but sure and clear, “I think we should go check up on Logan.”

  
  
  


Roman lived. 

It was difficult and it hurt and he stumbled, barely catching himself each time. There was always -- and always would be -- a space that should have been occupied by Remus’ presence. At birthdays. At every occasion and non-occasion, a gaping hole burned itself into Roman’s days and more than half the time he couldn’t take it. But he kept on pushing. He went to a therapist and talked. Stopped being angry at his brother for leaving. Fought back the part of him that wanted to leave too. 

He got his college degree and scanned the crowd hoping Remus would pop up between the sea of faces to throw a pebble at him. His eyes eventually fell on Janus, clapping his hands together and looking at Roman proudly. He was there for Roman, just like Virgil and Logan and his parents and everyone else in his life that also mattered. They couldn’t ever replace his brother, and all the years they would never have, but they were _there_.

And so Roman lived. He remembered Remus every day, and lived. 

**Author's Note:**

> Folks *clap*  
> We got a big boy here. Big topic.  
> First of all, if you're struggling with something like this please please don't do it. You're not alone and there are people who care for you and there are lots of resources that can help. I know lots of people say this, and that we don't know what you're going through but you're not alone. I've been there before. It gets better eventually, trust me. Just please don't, okay? If it's worth anything at all, I'm happy you're here. You make the world a better place. Stay. 
> 
> Okay so second of all, I'm by no means  
> a professional, I do not have any authority to write on this topic. I'm just one girl writing a story. That's it.  
> My aim was to give someone who's going through something similar to what Remus had an incentive to stay, a look at what may happen if they left. Or help someone who's in Roman's position dealing with the loss of a loved one to suicide. Some kind of catharsis or something to relate to. Just something. Even if one person benefits from it that's enough, it's more than I could ever hope for. I also did it to cope with some of my own thoughts, and to come to terms with some I've had in the past. That doesn't mean my representation isn't flawed and it would be irresponsible to say otherwise.  
> Third of all, Roman is only human, he isn't perfect. He's grieving and sad and his view of the situation is kinda fucked up because he doesn't understand why Remus did it. He's just hurt and trying to deal with that hurt. He blames himself, and he blames Remus too but he is not right to. His thinking is flawed. And that's okay, cause he's human and he's still learning and growing. It's valid if some people are mad at him or don't like him. Kinda the point, actually.  
> Fourth of all, Janus, ya'll. Just Janus. 
> 
> tl;dr don't kill yourself please. I have no idea what I'm doing or talking about, I'm just writing a story, and nothing Roman said about Remus's motivations is true. He can only guess, he'll never know exactly why and he just has to live with it.
> 
> Kudos and comments are of course immensely appreciated. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr too, so come say hi? Anyways thanks so much for reading. I hope the words are treating you well, drink lots of water k love you bye.
> 
> -Elise


End file.
